Audio Interview

Inflation: lessons in forecasting and humility

Published on February 12, 2023   29 min

Other Talks in the Playlist: Interviews with business leaders and scholars

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Interviewer: Today, 6th of December, 2022, when consumer inflation is almost 8% in the United States and over 11% in the UK, I'm interviewing Professor Jason Furman on his article of 17th of January, 2022 in Project Syndicate, "Why Did Almost Nobody See Inflation Coming?" Listeners are expected to have read the article before listening to the interview. Professor Furman is Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy jointly in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and Harvard Kennedy School. He's also non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from August, 2013 to January, 2017. A link to Professor Furman's biography accompanies this interview. Professor Furman, thank you for sparing the time. You wrote in your article "the most important forecasting lesson from last year is humility. We should all be adding some large error bands around our expectations and be prepared to update our outlooks as the economic situation unfolds." Therefore, may I start by asking, what are the implications of your forecasting lesson for politicians who must set policy and for the public who elect them?

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Inflation: lessons in forecasting and humility

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